The present invention relates, in general, to a rotating warning light system and particularly, to a shock mounting system for isolating and protecting the fragile light bulbs mounted to such rotating warning lights, thereby increasing the reliability of the system, especially when used on vehicles.
In the past, various arrangements have been employed to provide shock isolating mounts for rotating warning light systems mounted to vehicles. It will be appreciated by those familiar with the art that, a main component of failure for such warning light systems are shock transmitted from the chassis of the vehicle to the rotating warning lights, and particularly harmful, to the bulb itself and the very fragile filaments. Such recurring shock cycles, being absorbed by the rotating warning light system, quite frequently result premature in failure of the bulb. Quite frequently, such failures occur at most inopportune times which may result in a highly dangerous situation to those workers in, or near, the vehicle to which the warning light is mounted. Many operators of such vehicles realize that frequent bulb failure is a fact and, accordingly, replace the bulbs on a fairly frequent schedule. Thus many bulbs are replaced regardless of whether or not the bulb has failed. Obviously, replacing bulbs on such a schedule is time consuming, as well as expensive. The expense is particularly dramatic when halogen bulbs are utilized for their cost is substantially more than a standard filament bulb such as has been commonly used for many years.
Some examples of shock absorbing mounting systems for warning light assemblies may be seen in the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,117,302 issued to Cardarelli et al on Jan. 7, 1964; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,327,110 issued to Baldwin on Jun. 20, 1967; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,212,051 issued to Kulik on Jul. 8, 1980; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,145 issued to Roller et al on Mar. 13, 1984; PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,812,955 issued to Beswick et al on Mar. 14, 1989; and PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,523,933 issued to Swanson on Jun. 4, 1996.
It is evident from a review of patents listed above that none deal with the combined problems of bulb breakage and the reduced life of the rotating motor assembly caused directly by shock loads transmitted to both the motor and bulb through the chassis of the vehicle to which the rotating light assembly is mounted.